NASHVILLE – A Central American migrant caravan making its way through Mexico to the U.S. has become the latest front in Tennessee’s Senate battle with Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn labeling the group an “illegal alien mob” and charging that Democratic rival Phil Bredesen “would like to roll out the welcome mat for them.”
“It comes as no surprise that my opponent said the illegal alien mob nearing our border is ‘not a threat’ to security, considering he called the border wall ‘political theater’ and granted illegal aliens state-issued, taxpayer funded driving certificates as Governor,” Blackburn said in a statement Thursday.
Bredesen spokeswoman Alyssa Hansen, meanwhile, accused Blackburn of peddling “outright lies” about the former governor’s “proven track-record on immigration.” She called the comments “disgusting fear-mongering coming from Congresswoman Blackburn [that] show just how well-versed she has become in D.C. swamp politics.
“Instead of focusing on fixing our country’s broken immigration system, she’s fixated on using negative, false attacks to bolster her own failing campaign and using a serious problem as a wedge issue,” Hansen added.
The latest set to in the close Tennessee contest came as Blackburn seized on a Wednesday report by WCYB-TV in Bristol which said Bredesen told the station he wants stronger security on the U.S. but believes concerns about the caravan are overblown.
“We’re the strongest country in the world and a few thousand very poor people going to our border is not a threat to our security,” Bredesen told the station.
With the Nov. 6 midterm elections quickly approaching, President Donald Trump in recent days has put a spotlight on the caravan, which The Washington Post reported Thursday has dwindled rapidly from an estimate of 7,200 by the United Nations earlier in the week to 3,630 on Wednesday.
Blackburn said “there is a right way to come to this country, and there is a wrong way to come to this country. This mob, which the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed includes gang members, individuals with criminal histories, and people from the Middle East, is seeking to enter our country the wrong way.”
She charged that Bredesen wants to “roll out the welcome mat” for them, “hand them a state-issued, taxpayer funded driving certificates, and get them to work for his campaign. This is a clear difference between the two of us.”
Her driver certificate reference stems from a 2004 law that Bredesen pressed as governor in response to concerns raised about a 2001 law passed several years before he became governor.
That law allowed undocumented immigrants the ability to obtain state-issued driver licenses. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials later asked the state to alter that to alleviate concerns the licenses could be used to board airplanes following the earlier terror attacks involving hijacked planes.
With support from a number of Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers, the state got rid of the licenses and implemented a program where persons who couldn’t document their legal presence in the U.S. could get a one-year certificate that stated it was for driving purposes only and could not be used as identification.
While governor in 2006, Bredesen sent several hundred Tennessee National Guard members and helicopters to assist the federal government on border patrol duties.
During Blackburn and Bredesen’s second and last debate earlier this month in Knoxville, Blackburn and Bredesen both agreed they disliked Trump’s policy on separating parents and children who were crossing illegally into the U.S. but sharply disagreed over the president’s call for a physical wall costing upwards of $70 billion on the U.S. border with Mexico.
He went on to say that “I believe very strongly in controlling our borders. There’s no question about that” and recalled sending National Guard members to the Arizona border in 2006. “But I think there are much better ways of doing it than building a wall. In today’s world with the technology we have we could do that more effectively and more quickly and less expensively than that.
“I just think the wall is sort of political theater,” Bredesen said. “But we do need to control our borders, there’s no question about it. And it’s something we ought to be able to do together in a bipartisan fashion.”
Blackburn charged that “we know that if Phil had his way and Hillary [Clinton] president – and he wanted her to be president and he gave her $33,000 – and the Democrats have advocated for open borders, for abolishing ICE.
“We need to secure that border,” Blackburn added. “He thinks that building the wall is political theater. Let me tell you, Tennesseans want to see that wall built. Because open border policies have made every town a border town and every state a border state.”
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow on Twitter @AndySher1.